Several exotic species, including meerkats, fat-tail gerbils, albino pacman frogs, tarantulas, sphynx rats, chameleons and iguanas, were seized from a passenger, by Customs officials at the Chennai airport.
Based on information that such species may be smuggled into the city from Bangkok, Chennai customs officials detained Ibrahim Sha, 38, a passenger who arrived by a Thai Airways flight. On Friday morning, when he was leaving the arrival hall in a suspicious manner, he was held at the exit. The officials questioned him and wanted to checked his baggage.
When his baggage was opened, two plastic containers, a tiffin box and a cake box, hidden along with chocolates and wafers, were found. The containers had rodents and reptiles. The officials questioned him about where he got the animals from and to whom he had to hand them over. The passenger said they were given to him by someone outside the Bangkok airport, and that he had to give it to an unknown passenger who would be waiting for him outside the Chennai airport. Though the officials waited along with the passenger for a while, no one turned up.
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Later, Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) officials were called in to identify the species. The seized animals include: two meerkats (a carnivore of Mangoose family and a native of Kalahari Desert and Angola), four fat tail gerbils (a native of northern Sahara), one sphynx rat (indigenous to Africa), one albino pacman frog (indigenous to South America), three tarantulas (an African species), one chameleon (indigenous to Africa) and an iguana (indigenous to northern Mexico), a press release said.
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A team of veterinary doctors from the Arignar Anna Zoological Park, who inspected the animals, said they were in a healthy condition. Animal Quarantine officials recommended that the animals should be sent back to their respective countries of origin, as the passenger did not have a licence to import them.